


The Caged Bird Sings

by ravenoftheninerealms



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Drabble, Gen, M/M, Post-Avengers feels, or more specifically coulson feels, plot twist: clint is good with all sorts of bows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-29
Updated: 2012-08-29
Packaged: 2017-11-13 03:46:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/499112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenoftheninerealms/pseuds/ravenoftheninerealms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>or, alternatively, The Cellist In Portland.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Caged Bird Sings

**Author's Note:**

> I promise one of these days I'll write happy, fluffy fic. 
> 
> Today is not one of those days...
> 
> Also, I'm not a cellist, so I apologize for any botched terminology.

His cage? Right now, his cage is made of empty suits, cold cups of long-forgotten coffee, and bloodied trading cards. And the voice still echoes in his head (They're vintage, he'd said) and the mask cracks as the snigger from years before twists and stays lodged in his throat, becoming silence and the three-four time of the bow sawing on the stage goes on and on, as the show must.

This didn't start as some cover, just a simple break, a chance to use a bow that didn't kill fellow agents under the blue pulsing of not-his eyes ( _oh god, what if it hadn't been fury between him and the box, what if it'd been-- no, no buts, no ifs, don't go down that road_ ), a chance to relax.

He didn't even flinch when he'd looked up midway through his first performance, years ago, and seen Phil against the wall, standing primly between the meandering crowds and the finely dressed couples swirling on the dance area. Because Phil knows ( _knew, he corrected himself_ ) everything.

And if afterwards, he missed how they danced to the rest of the soloists, a white rose boutonniere tucked in his trademark purple silk vest ( _he'd been too surprised to protest the utter sappiness of the moment the first time Phil had brought him one after his piece, and it'd simply become ritual_ ), he didn't say a word. All of them had been left, back on a slab of marble pelted by rain, surrounded by enough black umbrellas to make one claustrophobic.

He wouldn't be coming back to Portland.


End file.
